Vietnamese companies have a wealth of opportunities to engage in trade with Russia, particularly in sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and textiles. Additionally, there are more traditional fields such as energy that present potential areas for collaboration. This was highlighted by Mr. Alexander Stuglev, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the Roscongress Fund, during a meeting on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Ho Chi Minh City on July 4.
The Roscongress Foundation, founded in 2007 by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is responsible for organizing annual economic events in the country. Mr. Stuglev emphasized the potential areas of cooperation between Russia and Vietnam, including energy, transportation, construction, tourism, fashion, and information technology. He also noted that Russia has a strong demand for agricultural investment and imports of agricultural products.
One area that presents significant opportunities is fashion consumption within the tourism industry. It is projected that Russians will spend over $2.8 billion on fashion this year alone and this number is expected to increase to $4.74 billion by 2029. Furthermore, in the first 10 months of 2023, Russia imported over $343 million worth of textiles and garments from Vietnam – an increase of 91% compared to the same period in 2022.
Vietnam-Russia trade turnover last year reached $3.6 billion and saw growth of 2.3% compared to the previous year. Coffee electronics seafood rubber are among the most exported items to Russia while Vietnam imports items such as coal fertilizer seafood meat from Russia. The CEO of the Roscongress Foundation envisages that bilateral trade could reach $15-20 billion in the future due to numerous opportunities for collaboration – especially given recent global geopolitical changes which present new challenges but also prospects for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
On the Vietnamese side companies see Russia as a significant market with efforts being made to expand and attract buyers – especially given Covid-19’s impact on supply chains globally . TH Group stands out as one example of Vietnamese agricultural investor in Russia; they completed phase one of a dairy farming project producing 40 liters per cow per day . They commended Russia’s conducive environment for large-scale high-tech agricultural development citing transparent attractive agricultural investment policies in
